01
Curiosity before compliance.
We teach children to ask better questions — not just produce better answers. A Circa classroom is built around an unknown, not a worksheet.
Est. 1974 · Gloucestershire
Learning, in the round.
The Circa School is a progressive independent school in the Cotswolds for children aged 3 to 18. We teach in small groups, in mixed-age studios, on a 40-acre campus designed around curiosity rather than corridors.
Small by design
1:8
Pupil to teacher ratio across the whole school. No class is larger than 16.
Class of 2025
92%
Of our sixth form received offers from Russell Group or Oxbridge this year.
Campus
40 ac.
Woodland, meadow, studios, a working orchard, and an open-air theatre.
Three ideas that shape everything we do.
02
Slower, deeper, kinder.
We run longer lessons, fewer subjects at once, and protected thinking time. Depth is how understanding moves from the class to the child.
03
One whole school.
Our 3-year-olds and our 17-year-olds share the same dining hall, the same orchard, and often the same workshops. Community isn't a programme — it's the building.
A school that grows with your child.
From the first woodland mornings at three, through the big questions of middle school, to the sharp rigour of the sixth form — we teach the whole arc, not the end of it.
Ages 3–7
Infant Studio
A garden first. A classroom second.
Early years built around outdoor learning, story, and making. Children read when they are ready to read, and love it when they do.
Explore the Infant Studio
Ages 8–14
Middle School
The years of big questions.
A rigorous core curriculum taught in long, project-shaped blocks. We sit GCSEs — just fewer of them, and better.
Explore Middle School
Ages 15–18
Sixth Form
Where curiosity meets craft.
A bespoke diploma combining three A-levels with an independent research thesis, a service commitment, and a mentor from outside the school.
Explore Sixth FormFrom the people who know us best.
We moved Rosa at ten after two unhappy years at a much bigger school. Within a term she was reading at bedtime again, asking questions about the moon, and making her own lunch. You can't put a value on that.
HW
Hattie Warrington
Parent · Middle School
The sixth form thesis I wrote at Circa became the basis of my Oxford personal statement. My tutor treated me like an adult — and then held me to it.
SK
Samir Keating
Class of 2023 · Oxford, PPE